Where Sustainable Travel is Headed in 2018

TORONTO – April 17, 2018 – To celebrate Earth Day on 22 April, Booking.com, the global leader in connecting travellers with the widest choice of incredible places to stay, has released the findings from its most recent global Sustainable Travel Report.

The report indicates that the green travel trend continues to gain momentum with a large majority of Canadian travellers (84%) stating that they want to travel sustainably. However, 49% indicate they never, rarely or only sometimes manage to travel sustainably, suggesting that while promising strides are being made for a greener future, there is still plenty of room to turn intentions into action.

Sustainability starts where you stay

‘Sustainable travel’ is a subjective term that has different connotations for different people. However, for many travellers it merely means staying in eco-friendly or green accommodations, topping the list of what people think of when hearing the term. The top reasons travellers give for choosing these eco-friendly places to rest their heads are to help reduce environmental impact, to have a locally relevant experience, and wanting to feel good about an accommodation choice.

Looking ahead, more than two-thirds (64%) of Canadian travellers intend to stay in an eco-accommodation in 2018 – reassuringly up from 2017 and 2016.

Eco-inspiration

When it comes to what inspires people to travel more sustainably, it seems that travel itself is the biggest motivator. More than half of Canadian travellers (57%) indicated that they found the impressive natural sights visited on past travels as their inspiration to travel more sustainably.

Overcoming eco-barriers

While perceived extra cost remains the top barrier for travellers wanting to travel more sustainably, two thirds (58%) of Canadian travellers would be willing to spend at least 5% more on their travel to ensure it was as low an impact on the environment as possible.

As sustainable travel intentions grow, travellers are still looking for ways to more easily fulfil these ambitions. Almost half said that online booking sites offering a sustainable or eco-friendly filter option would help.

As part of its commitment to improving ways to uncover and share the sustainability efforts of its own accommodation partners, Booking.com is partnering with organizations like Green Key, an internationally recognized eco-label with strict award criteria that honors positive environmental management, to highlight Green Key awarded properties as 'sustainable' on its site.

It’s good to go green

Proving too that sustainability measures don’t need to come at an inconvenience, many global travellers indicated they engage in sustainable travel behavior because the activity itself adds a positive vacation experience to their trip.

"As Canadian travellers increasingly look to explore and experience the world in a sustainable way, we continue to look at ways that we can help make it even easier for them to do that, whether by highlighting eco-friendly properties or enabling people to filter their search results on Booking.com based on proximity to an electric vehicle charging station," says Pepijn Rijvers, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Booking.com. " Today’s research reaffirms that sustainable travel is within reach for all of us, which is encouraging as we together strive to make a positive impact for a more sustainable future."

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CONTACT DETAILS

For further information, contact the Booking.com Canada Press Office;

annie@punchcanada.com/ 647.837.1263

NOTES TO EDITORS

*Research commissioned by Booking.com and independently conducted among a sample of 12,134 respondents, across 12 different markets. The results in this article focus on Canadian travellers only, which consisted of 1035 respondents. In order to participate in this survey, respondents had to be 18 years of age or older, had to have travelled at least once in 2017, be planning at least one trip for 2018 and either the primary decision maker or involved in the decision making of their travel. Respondents completed an online survey in February and March 2018.

**These percentages pertain to the 4,768 respondents who actually stayed in eco-friendly accommodation at least once in 2017.

***This is the third year in which the Booking.com Sustainable Travel survey has been held. While the methodology and a set of core questions has remained the same, some additional questions were added and the sample has expanded over the years. For the 2017 edition, 11,069 respondents were surveyed (1000+ from the above countries except India, which was first added in 2018). For the 2016 edition, a total 10,025 respondents were surveyed (1000+ from the above countries except Spain, France and India, but including New Zealand.)

About Booking.com

Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com B.V. has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the largest travel e-commerce companies in the world. Part of Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG), Booking.com now employs more than 17,000 employees in 198 offices in 70 countries worldwide.

With a mission to empower people to experience the world, Booking.com invests in digital technology that helps take the friction out of travel. At Booking.com, we connect travellers with the world’s largest selection of incredible places to stay, including everything from apartments, vacation homes, and family-run B&Bs to 5-star luxury resorts, tree houses and even igloos. The Booking.com website and mobile apps are available in 43 languages, offer over 27 million total reported listings and cover more than 130,000 destinations in 227 countries and territories worldwide.

Each day, more than 1.5 million room nights are reserved on our platform. So whether traveling for business or leisure, customers can instantly book their ideal place to stay quickly and easily with Booking.com, without booking fees and backed up by our promise to price match. Via our customer experience team, customers can reach Booking.com 24/7 for assistance and support in 43 languages, any time of the day or night.

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